In next generation wireless networks, a block acknowledgement (BA) mechanism may be employed in which a single acknowledgement frame is used to acknowledge the successful receipt of a number of data frames. During a BA transaction, a first network device (called the originator) may transmit a series of data frames to a second network device (called the recipient). After the frames have been transmitted, the originator may transmit a BA request to the recipient requesting that the recipient acknowledge receipt of the transmitted data frames. The recipient may then respond by transmitting a BA response to the originator that indicates which of the originally transmitted data frames were successfully received and which were not. If one or more of the transmitted data frames were not successfully received, the originator may retransmit the frames in a future frame sequence. After the originator receives the BA response from the recipient, there may be a processing delay before the originator is able to determine from the BA response which data frames, if any, need to be retransmitted. This delay is due primarily to interrupt latency.
When the recipient receives data frames from the originator, it may temporarily store the frames within a receive buffer according to the sequence numbers associated with the frames. The data frames may then be read in sequence from the receive buffer. After a data frame has been read from the receive buffer, a memory location in the buffer is freed. If a data frame was unsuccessfully received by the recipient, the corresponding data frame cannot be read out from the receive buffer until it has been retransmitted and successfully received. Thus, if one or more unsuccessfully received data frames resides at the beginning of the receive buffer, memory locations within the buffer will not be freed and the buffer may become full. If the receive buffer becomes full, the originator will no longer be able to transfer data frames to the recipient. If the originator is unable to continue the BA burst after a predetermined period of time (e.g., a short interframe space (SIFS)), the burst is considered “broken.” A broken BA burst will typically result in reduced throughput and link utilization. There is a need for techniques and structures that are capable of enhancing throughput in a wireless network link during block acknowledgement bursting operations.